Configure File History in Windows 10 – Step by Step Guide

File history is a feature of Window operating systems that allows you to take backup of network files and helps to recover these files if something goes wrong. It works much like the same way as the Shadow Copy feature works. To configure the File History feature in Windows 10, you need either a USB media or a network drive where you will save the file history data. If you are using a virtualized platform such as VMware Workstation or VirtualBox, you can use the Shared Folder feature to configure File History.

The Shared Folder feature allows you to share the host system’s data with the virtual machines. In addition, Shared Folder can also be mapped as a network drive in the virtual machines. This network drive can be used to save the file history data. In this post, we will use VMware’s Shared Folder feature to configure File History inside Windows 10 virtual machine.

To configure File History in Windows 10, you need to perform the following steps:

Open the Virtual Machine Settings, click Options, and then select Shared Folders in the left pane. In the right pane, select the Always enabled radio button, and then click Add, as shown in the following figure.

On the welcome page of the Add Share Folder Wizard, click Next. On the Name the Shared Folder page, click Browse, select the folder of the local host machine that you want to share. For example, C:\Users\Public. It will be used to store the file history backup data.

Click Next and then click Finish to close the Add Shared Folder Wizard. Close the Virtual Machine Settings.

On your Windows 10 system, open File Explorer, and create some test files for the testing purpose.

Enable File History in Windows 10

To enable the File History feature, open the SETTINGS window, and select Update & security. On the UPDATE & SECURITY window, select Backup and then click Moreoptions .

On the BACKUP OPTIONS screen, click See advanced settings, as shown in the following figure.

On the File History window, click Select a network location. On the Select

On the Select Drive window, ensure that your network location is added, and then click OK.

On the File History window, you can see that the Turn on option is now highlighted. Click Turn on.

Wait until the File History is on message appears and then click Run now.

Wait for a few seconds and close all the active windows. Navigate to the Documents folder and delete the files that you have created previously. Also, empty the Recycle Bin.

Recovering Deleted Files Using File History

To recover deleted files using the File History feature, you need to perform the following steps:

Press the Start button, type file history in the search box, and then select Restore your files with File History, as shown in the following figure.

On the Home – File History window, double-click the Documents.On the Document – File History window, select your deleted files, in this case, Text File1 and Text File2 and then click Restore button to recover the deleted files.

Navigate to the Documents folder and verify that your files are recovered.

That’s all you need to configure File History in Windows 10 and recover files using this feature. If got stuck anywhere don’t hesitate to share your issues. Just drop your queries in the comment box, we will catch you soon.